Monday 9 February 2015

Semana de Hermanas (Week of Sisters)

Hola Familia y amigos!

So I´ve been hearing that a lot of you are wondering how my Spanish is coming along. 

Estoy mas mejor que el primero día. Escribo en ingles porque puedo escribir mas rápido.  Los acentos aquí son muy malo entonces es un poco difícil para entender.  (I am much better than the first day. I write in english because I can write much faster.  The accents here are pretty bad therefore it's a little difficult to understand.)

I´m glad the Valetine's Day dance you guys had was a hit!  Our goal here was to have a wedding on Valentine´s day but it doesn´t look like that´s going to happen...oh well!  We always have next year!

Este semana (this week) we had a gran intercambio .(great exchange - where all the sisters mix up their companionships for a day or two)  All the sisters from our area and the capacitadoras (trainers) came to Curacautín and we did a contacting blitz.  

It was fun to have our apartment filled with Hermanas and get to know them a little better.  It was like one giant slumber party!  In the morning we made French toast for everyone!

I learned a lot from working with the other sisters.  There are certainly many different teaching styles. For example, Hermana Robinson loves to hear people´s background stories and works really hard on connecting with them.  I admire that about her.  I want to be able to do that but I think I have to be able to understand our investigators a little better first. 

I was paired up with a Latina named Hermana Gonzalez from El Salvador.  She used to work in Curacautín.  She´s super funny yet very bold. I don´t know why they don´t pair all the Gringos up with Latinos!  The people here are much more trusting when there aren't two foreigners standing on their door step!

Anyway, I learned from her that it´s ok to planch (asked for clarification - mean "roasted" - in reference to being bold) people once in a while.  They need to see us as confident and understand our purpose.  We are not there just to give them an opportunity to talk to "las dos gringas rubias" (the two blonde Gringas).  We are here to give them the opportunity to be baptized for the remission of their sins and receive the most precious gift God can give us: the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Every good thing comes from the Holy Ghost.  Peace, happiness, knowledge, guidance, comfort.  It is the power that knits families together in unity.  

During the blitz, the capacitadoras (trainers) found a `bruja´(witch).  She believes that she can cure sick infants with a candle and string. Apparently it´s a pretty common thing here.    While they were teaching her, a neighbour came in with her sick kid and they watched the whole routine.  It´s quite a process!  Needless to say, we´re teaching her now but we´re going to have to make the whole authority of God¨ very clear.

Today we made tacos and baked chocolate cake en la capilla (chapel - the church building has a kitchen) because we don´t have an oven in our house!  It was super delicious! I think I´m going to bake more if we have the chance.  Another yummy food thing I tried this week is like Chilean poutine: eggs meat and cheese over fries! It was super rico (rich)!


Fun little cultural fact:  Canned food items are very hard to find here,  They all come in foil packs or tetra packs.  For example tomato sauce only comes in a bag or a foil pack.  Milk tambien (also) only comes in tetra packs...It´s good though. The groceries are super light when you don´t have all that extra metal!

Love you all!

Hermana Jakob


Chilean version of poutine.  Tastes great!


 We ate 1 berry each and our tongues were that purple!  The berries are called Moni...i think.


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